Chapter 41: O Gather Me the Rose

O gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it.

For with the dream foregone, foregone,
The deed forborne forever,
The worm Regret will canker on,
And time will turn him never.

So were it well to love, my love,
And cheat of any laughter
The fate beneath us, and above,
The dark before and after.

The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
The sunshine and the swallow,
The dream that comes, the wish that goes
The memories that follow!

"O Gather Me the Rose, the Rose" from "A Book of Verses" By William Ernest Henley © 1888, London: Alfred Nutt

Weak sunlight streamed through her open curtains, causing the small lump in the bed to groan and awaken as the light burned through her closed eyelids. She rolled over in an attempt to avoid the inevitable, but a sudden thought brought her mind to full consciousness.

"Erik!" She exclaimed, her young voice full of happiness and excitement.

Smiling brightly, she leapt from her bed and without a thought, ran from her room. Frowning as she entered the small sitting room, she turned her head to inspect the kitchen, but a soft sound halted her mid-turn. Her eyes turned again to scrutinize the sitting room. Her smile revisited her pouting rosebud mouth and spread across her features, finalizing in a gleeful twinkle of her eyes as she located the origin of the sound. Impishly, she tiptoed to the settee and reached out her finger to poke at the source of the quiet snoring.

"Boo!" The young man roared.

She let out a shriek and jumped nearly a foot off the floor before landing on the blanket covered young man. Her little fists pounded on his chest as she giggled madly.

"Oh, Erik, so, you think that you can scare me just like that and get away with it? Oh, no, Monsieur, be prepared for you have met your match. Now it is my turn to toy with you and you shall find that there is no escape from the titian's terribly tremendous torture by her tiny, tickling touch! Beware, Erik, ye must abandon all hope if ye enter here! ¹"

The two on the settee dissolved into a tangle of flailing arms and flying hands. Rich tenor guffaws rang throughout the room interwoven with the bell-like tones of the young soprano's ebullient giggles. The sounds of their mirth drew the older man from his room. He stood in the doorway and watched in awe at the two wrestling on the settee.

"Even in play their love outshines everything around them. Not even Christine's mother and I found such a love as this with one another. They are a match made in heaven and I feel more at ease seeing this. Lilith does not have the slightest hope of luring Christine into her web—not this time, not with Erik here. The only truly difficult undertaking for me is dying. How am I to take leave of my daughter's embrace again? This time I do not even have the thought of rejoining her mother to comfort me. After this, I am to spend eternity as an angel. Ah!"

The man sighed quietly.

"Well, if it means that my child's soul shall be safe from damnation, then this sentence of exile from humanity is well worth it. For what parent would not gladly forfeit their soul to save their child? To see her smile is reward enough."

He straightened and placed his arms across his chest then cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, children. There was someone else in the house trying to get some sleep."

The pair was so engrossed in tickling each other that they did not hear the man's dry comment, so he tried again.

"Bonjour, could the two of you possibly be any louder?"

As fate would have it, he shouted his question just as the pair paused to draw breath. This quirk of happenstance caused a momentary silence to hold sway in the room, so his comment sounded thunderous. The two leapt up and sat stunned on the settee. They stared at the older man and gasped out in surprise.

"Papa," Christine gasped with a voice breathless from her exertions.

"Monsieur," Erik choked out, his voice laced with embarrassment.

The startled pair spoke as one, which caused their laughter and the tickling to begin all over again. The man rolled his eyes to the heavens and shook his head. He moved into the kitchen to begin making breakfast.

"Christine, it is time for your chores! Come now! We have a busy day ahead of us. We need to air out the spare room for Erik and make up a bed for him. Hurry now, no dawdling, ma petite ange! If you and Erik can ready the room before dinner, perhaps we can have a music lesson before supper."

From the kitchen, Gustave saw a small, curly brown head pop up and peek over the back of the settee.

"Music?" Christine's piping voice squeaked with excitement.

"Music," the older man repeated in a firm tone.

"Music?" the young man's voice inquired.

"Oh, yes, music," the girl sighed happily. "Come on, Erik! Trust me. You want music!"

She leapt from the settee and hurried to begin her chores, the first one being setting the table for breakfast. Erik followed uncertainly, feeling like an awkward boy, he paused in the kitchen's doorway and observed the older man as he stoked the coals in the stove's firebox.

"Bonjour, Gustave." Erik bobbed his head in greeting. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

The man chuckled and looking pointedly at the small stove replied. "We always need wood. Can you fetch me some from outside?"

"Of course, I shall not take but a moment."

The man smiled as he grabbed a bowl from a shelf and proceeded to crack a few eggs into it.

"This is working out better than I ever hoped or imagined it would."

"Look, Erik, look at what I found! Is it not beautiful?"

She held her small hand aloft and waved it excitedly in the cool autumn air.

"Be careful! That rock is very slippery. There is moss all over it. What are you trying to do, break your leg? Your father will have my neck if you hurt yourself. Come on, Christine. Get down from there."

He shook his head as he watched her pretty lips form a dramatic pout.

"That will not work with me, you know that. Come on, get down from there and come show me what you found. I am exhausted chasing after you. I am sitting down here and I am not moving for at least a half an hour. You have to come here if you want me to see whatever you have found."